Shows how literature can aid psychoanalysts in the understanding of psychological conflicts.

For more than a hundred years, psychoanalysts have applied their theories of neurosis to objects of culture, including literature. In this book, psychoanalyst, anthropologist, and scholar of religion Volney P. Gay reverses field and uses literature to reevaluate psychoanalysis. Arguing that neurosis occurs when we cannot recollect joy, Gay focu...(Read More)

"One of the most common criticisms of Freud is that his theory cannot satisfactorily account for religion or artistic creativity. Gay's revision of Freud's theory using Gibson's theory of perception allows the Freudian concept of sublimation to function in a positive way that squares with artistic creativity, religion, and common experience. Gay has made a significant contribution to psychoanalytic theory and to the understanding of human creativi...(Read More)